Merry F-ing New Year!

Well... what have we here? A spanking brand new year. The world didn't end in 2012 and we now write 2013, would you look at that. It is with great trepidation I write this blog post, because it's time for the inevitable end of the year review, comparing last years goals to what I actually did. This will be a lengthy post, so go make yourself a cup of coffee or tea and settle down before reading it.

Back? Good. So... how did I do? Did I finish any projects that I started, or did I just start them up and then abandon them? How many new projects did I start contrary to my rigid plans? I honestly don't know, and I'm not sure I dare go and look it up. But I suppose I must... 

Blog related stuff:

I'll do the boring bits first... In 2012 I decided to switch from blogging in Swedish to blogging in English. (Some might call it Gibberish, and they are not incorrect...) Originally I started this blog just for myself as a means to document what I did hobby-wise, and a place to write down the colours I used for various paint schemes. I wanted to show my gaming mates my stuff, but I realised that I had aquired followers from outside Sweden as well, somehow...

I wrote 59 blog posts during 2012 which is a little bit more than one post a week. One of my goals have always been to update once a week so I think it's an acceptable number of posts. Of course sometimes there has been more than one post a week and sometimes there have been longer times between posts. I also started to write a post about why we play wargames, but it turned out too serious for me to post. Someday I might rewrite it trying to lighten the subject up a little bit.

I bet this guy got me a lot of extra hits.

I hit 50 followers late this december and I'm honoured that people actually want to read my ramblings. And quite surprised too. More surprisingly the two blog posts that have garnered the most page views are not about painting but me rambling about the state of our hobby. First, with more than twice the number of hits than any other post, is Lord of the Franchise where I talk about the LotR license from a gaming point of view and compare it with the Lego license from a collecting and playing point of view. I guess it's because of the Hobbit movie that I recieve so many hits. The second popular post is Paint by numbers where I rant about the difficulty of finding the correct paint for my LRDG project. I don't know if it's because I mentioned Flames of War or just because I had some demotivational posters. If it's the former this post will probably get a lot of hits too...

Planned projects for 2012:

• Saga. My goal for 2012 was to finish a 4 point viking warband and play at least one game. I only finished a unit of 12 bowmen, although I have bought the rest of the figures and even a long-ship! Sadly I didn't get a game in either. FAIL!

• WW2 6 mm Desert. My goal was to continue this project, painting more infantry and the two packs of armoured cars I had bought. Although I didn't paint any infantry, I did finish half of the armoured cars, as well as enough armour and anti-tank assets to play Operation Supercharge. SUCCESS!

A Squadron of GHQ Crusaders. One of my better achievements.

• Orks. Since my kids have started a little bit with Warhammer 40k my goal was to continue this project, slowly, in parallell with all the other stuff. During 2012 I did some army planning and realised I needed some extra equipment, so I bought a battleforce set. Apart from assembling and organising all the Boyz I finished the Trukk from the set. Minor success.

• Tomorrow's War. I was tempted to try it out and I planned to buy the rulebook and construct army rules for my Star Wars 28mm pre-paints. I never bought the rules, so I will have to consider this a non-starter. However, I didn't spend any money so it's not really a failed project.

• LRDG 20mm. This project was going to be our convention participation game for 2012. The goals set out for it were for me to finish three vehicles (with crew) for the LRDG as well as some airfield buildings, trucks and airplanes as objectives. I built and painted a jeep and a Ford truck, but didn't finish the Chevrolet truck. As for the italian stuff I never started any of it. FAIL!  

• WW2 Western Europe 20mm. This is actually my main project which I have been keeping on a back-burner while doing all the other stuff. During 2011 I started a Platoon Forward campaign and the goal for 2012 was to finish the american figures I started for the campaign, as well as keep doing more terrain suitable for Europe and keep painting the german hordes I have got. I also intended to continue work on my Canadian forces that I hadn't touched during 2011. In the end I did some terrain and finished a couple of german figures, as well as adding more british and german kits to the pile. Minor fail.

The notorious "metal camo" fatigues were never popular with the troops.

New unplanned projects:

• WW2 Eastern front, 20mm. We did an extra participation game just before summer and decided to continue the Barbarossa project since we figured it was the easiest to do. For that I painted up three Panzer IV's from Plastic Soldier Company. I also painted five russian log houses from Pegasus and a ruined brick workshop from Airfix for the game. SUCCESS!

• Dust Warfare. I was seduced by the looks of WW2 german hardware crossbred with alien tech and mounted on giant two-legged walkers. Bought the rulebook, a walker, two german squads and one allied. While I fully intended to have this as a main project and even painted the walker and two of the squads, I never managed to play the game during 2012. I just picked up the Dust Tactics starter set for less than half price at my LFGS, so I'm hoping to keep this one going during 2013. Hopefully. Still, a minor fail.

Nurgle Lord. Nothing funny about him.

• Warhammer Fantasy. Some of my work-mates are also my oldest gaming mates and sometimes we still play Warhammer (and a couple of the other GW games). This always makes me want to finish my Dwarf army and I start to paint short hairy dudes. This year was no exception and our two games made me both start painting again and signing up for Avatars of War's Indiegogo campaign for a dwarf army. In the end I only finished Helga, Queen of the Dwarves and the new plastic Nurgle Lord. Minor fail.

• Lord of the Rings. I needed some opponents for my Saga Vikings and being somewhat of a cheapskate I got the bright idea that I would use my old LotR orcs as stand-in welsh/saxon/generic bad guys. These are the GW figures made after the movies and are quite good figures; great sculpts by the Perry twins, many different poses and varied weapons and armour. Instead of painting them specifically as orcs I used a lot of browns and greys and painted their flesh like humans. I did this quite fast with no shading and dipped them in Army Painter wash. The end result is a rag-tag group of discusting, vaguely human looking creatures. I painted 19 of the little blighters which in Saga terms is 2½ points, more than my finished vikings. Rediscovering these great figures made me buy a box of the new plastic orcs as well as the Mines of Moria starter box to the delight of my kids. Now with the Hobbit movie out I have also bought that boxed set and I'm currently painting goblins as fast as I can. Minor success. 

The members of the Mordor Lonely Hearts Club out on a pub night.

Planned projects for 2013:

• WW2 Western Europe 20mm. I will continue with this project in a slow fashion, my main goal being to finish a lot of the plastic kits I have bought and started during 2011 and 2012. This includes both brits and germans, as well as keep doing suitable terrain. As such I will not set any specific goals, except that I want to finish my PSC carriers and my two Churchills.

Excellent book!

• WW2 Western Europe 6mm. I have quite a lot of british and german stuff in 6mm and I will dig these up and add to them. I really think that 6mm is the best scale for IABSM and during 2013 I plan to play the recently released Blenneville or Bust! campaign pack. My goal is to play at least the first two games out of the five possible within the campaign. (The pack includes over 21 possible scenarios but the campaign is only five games long.) I got so excited that I immediately ordered a company of fallschirmjäger with support from Adler minis, but the FJ doesn't come in until the fourth game... doh!

• WW2 6 mm Desert. I almost view this one as completed, however I still have some small stuff that I haven't done. There are a pack of Rolls Royce armoured cars that I haven't even opened, and there are a pack of Stuart Honeys that are basecoated but not finished. I also want to re-do the Big Men. They are currently mounted as single figures on separate bases, but after I did them I have adopted a system for IABSM where the number of figures on a command base denotes the level of the Big Man. So My goal for 2013 is to finish this force and to play some games with them!

• Lord of the Rings. I like the game, and the figures. So this one is a no-brainer. I'm currently indoctrinating the kids with the help of Lego LotR on the X-Box and will try to get some games in with them. Even if I don't, I enjoy painting the figures and I can use them for Saga or Thomas' Dux Gondorum campaign.

• Dust Warfare. Now that I have enough figures for both sides my aim is to try the game at least once. No promise on painting the figures, although I probably will do some of them.

• Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. No set plans for this one, but I will continue (slowly) painting and building my armies to get some games in. Hopefully I will get the kids to play games with me as well.

• Gaming table. This is the big one for 2013. I have managed to get permission from SWMBO to have gaming table indoors. Presently all my terrain and terrain boards are stored in the garage which makes playing games very hard to do. If I bring the boards inside I have to put everything away again, so I can't leave a game up and continue another day. Hopefully this will actually make me play more games during 2013.

Happy gaming everyone, and I hope your 2013 will be a good gaming year! May your dice roll well!